Gypsy King (Tin Gypsy, #1)(16)

With any luck, they’d decide soon and set the bond hearing. Maybe Dad would be out by Friday. Then we’d get some answers.

“I hate being in the dark.” I took a seat along the window. “Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing,” Emmett said. “Leo and I asked everywhere. Not a damn word. Everyone was as surprised as we were.”

“Shit.” Across the room, Dad’s office sat empty. Normally, we’d be in there this time of day, having a cup of coffee and talking about cars or bikes. I’d see what kind of paperwork he’d let me push from my desk to his. At the moment, I couldn’t concentrate on work. The questions about the murder stole all my focus.

“I wish I could find out who she was, the woman. Find out what Dad was doing with her.”

“Amina Daylee,” Emmett said from his chair across from Presley’s desk.

“Oh.” I jerked, surprised by his answer. When had the cops released her name? Maybe they’d done it while I’d been at the station, waiting in a stiff chair for over an hour to be told I wasn’t going to see Dad. Again. You’d think with the amount of taxes we paid they’d at least get a seat with a goddamn cushion.

Amina Daylee. I ran the name through my mind over and over, but it didn’t sound familiar. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She went to high school here,” Presley said. “Moved away after graduation. She was recently living in Bozeman. Has a daughter who lives in Colorado.”

Not a shock that Presley had already tapped into her gossip circles to find out about the victim. “Let’s find out more. How old was she? Does she still have ties here? How might she have known Dad?”

Since I couldn’t ask him how he knew her, maybe I could find the connection myself.

“They went to high school together,” Emmett said. “She’s a year younger than Draven.”

“Always one step ahead of me.” I chuckled, but my smile fell fast. “Wait. If the cops just released her name this morning and I came right here from the station, how did you figure all that out already? Was it on Facebook or some shit?”

Emmett and Presley shared a hesitant glance.

“What?” I demanded. “What happened?”

Presley blew out a deep breath and then slid a newspaper out from underneath her own stack of paperwork.

“Fuck.” Bryce Ryan was becoming a bigger pain in my ass every fucking day.

Was I going to have to start reading the goddamn newspaper?

“They did a special piece on the victim today.” Presley brought the paper over. “Amina was her name.”

I ripped the newspaper from her hand, reading through the front page quickly. Right in the center was a picture of Amina Daylee.

Her blond hair was cut just above her shoulders. Her makeup was light, not hiding a few wrinkles here and there. In the photo, she was sitting on a bench in some park, smiling as the flowers bloomed at her bare feet.

My hands crumpled the paper into a ball, the crinkling sound filling the office. I should have had that photo days ago. I should have had her name. I shouldn’t have to open the paper to a bunch of new fucking information.

I’d done some digging on Bryce Ryan since Dad’s arrest. Her story seemed straightforward. Grew up in Bozeman. Moved to Seattle and worked at a TV station. I’d found some old video clips of her on the internet, reading the news with that sexy voice. Then she’d quit her job, moved to Clifton Forge and bought into the paper.

Her routine was boring, at best. She was either at home, the newspaper or the gym. The only random trip she’d taken had been to the Evergreen Motel on Sunday.

When the paper was balled as tight as I could get it, I chucked it across the room. Except my aim was shit and I hit Emmett in the head.

“Hey!”

“Fucking Cody Pruitt. He probably gave her all this info the day he kicked me out of the motel. That pissant never liked me.”

If I hadn’t shown up, would he have told her anything? Or had he spewed it all out of spite?

“What are we going to do?” Presley asked. “Do you think he did it?”

“Draven?” Emmett asked. “No way.”

According to the article, Dad was the only person seen coming or going from Amina’s motel room between the hours of eight p.m. and six a.m. the night she was murdered. Bryce was generous enough to note in her article that he hadn’t been seen with blood on his hands.

But that didn’t mean shit. Dad had mastered the art of washing away blood a long, long time ago.

“He didn’t do it,” I assured Presley.

“How do you know?”

“Because if Dad had killed Amina Daylee, they would never have found her body.”

“Oh.” Presley sank into the chair, her chin dropping.

She’d started working at the garage about six years ago. It had been right at the time when the Tin Gypsies were tapering off our illegal undertakings. Or at least, the really illegal ones.

Presley had been hired to help in the office as Dad retired. She hadn’t minded overlooking some things happening at the clubhouse. The parties. The booze. The women.

The brothers who thought they might intimidate her a little. Presley was pint-sized, but her personality was full of fire, and she’d had the guts to put each man in his place when they acted like an asshole.